


been saying yes instead of no

by cupcakeb



Series: here's to us [2]
Category: Elite (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Childhood Sweethearts, F/M, Friends With Benefits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25549117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupcakeb/pseuds/cupcakeb
Summary: She supposes college is for this kind of thing — for hooking up with her kindergarten boyfriend turned person she tolerated through most of high school — because they’re both single, and the only people under the age of 40 at a dinner party.Maybe that's why she keeps doing it, too — because she can't think of a reason not to.
Relationships: Carla Rosón Carleruega/Guzmán Nunier Osuna
Series: here's to us [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1910464
Comments: 11
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, I'm too much of a sucker for the whole childhood sweethearts thing to not be ridiculously obsessed with the idea of these two idiots dating. So I wrote a little FWB/semi dating slow burn which isn't very slow at all.
> 
> This kicks off after [quitting this while you're ahead](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25251166/chapters/61213834) ends, in case you're curious about the cohesive timeline of it all, but you'll have no problems reading this as a stand-alone.

Moving to London to pursue a degree in business is probably the best choice Carla has ever made. She gets to be away from her psychotic parents, away from the group of friends she loves dearly but connects almost exclusively with horrifying events now, and start anew. Reinventing herself is easy enough. It’s also fun, and she loves getting to figure out what sort of person she is these days, because she’s not even sure _she_ knew before the move.  
  
Her first year of classes goes well, which is to say she excels academically, forms a pretty close bond with some of her new classmates that isn’t based on murder, and settles into a routine in a city that she genuinely loves. She likes that she can do well in her classes without putting a ton of effort into studying, and she likes the lack of pressure that comes with knowing she’ll most likely just take over the wineries once she’s done with school — having that certainty allows her to focus on actually enjoying her life, just a little, just for a few years, for once.  
  
Summer is still a welcome distraction from university, and exams, and the sweltering heat on London transport. Carla is sort of happy to be home for about two days, and then she remembers how impossible summers in Madrid are, with temperatures reaching sauna-esque levels and no beach or coast line to escape to.  
  
She supposes college is for this kind of thing — for hooking up with her kindergarten boyfriend turned person she tolerated through most of high school — because they’re both single, and the only people under the age of 40 at a dinner party.  
  
Guzmán gives her a look from across the room when he spots her, grins a little, and she blames London!Carla, the mellowed out, fun version of herself, for the way she smiles back at him and walks over.  
  
He hugs her in a dinner party appropriate way, then gets them both another drink, and walks outside with her, his hand hovering near the small of her back.  
  
She’s been single for the longest time, can hardly even remember the last time she had anyone to take home, so she leans into his touch and bites her lip.  
  
“Welcome back,” he says, when they’re finally outside and alone, with no parents or high society acquaintances of said parents around. He greedily takes her in, his eyes lingering on her cleavage for a second too long to be appropriate. “You look good.”  
  
She scoffs, amused. It’s great to see he still hasn’t learned how to filter his thoughts properly. But she’ll bite. She’s bored, he’s hot, and she can think of worse choices to make. “So do you.”  
  
They silently sip their whiskey on the rocks for a moment as she considers her next move.  
  
“Are you single?”  
  
“Obviously,” he says, and she sort of laughs at that. Flirting with her clearly doesn’t imply he’s actually single. She has no idea why that would be obvious; it’s not like he hasn’t cheated before. ”You?”  
  
She nods, then finishes the rest of her drink in one go, swirling the ice cubes around the empty glass absentmindedly. She glances over at him and finds him watching her closely. The implications of that look on his face are clear — they both know where this is going.  
  
The dinner portion of this dinner party is done, anyway. They could probably sneak off without it being a big deal.  
  
“Are you only doing this with me because there are no other options around?”  
  
That feels pretty important. Not that she's going to stop him. She doesn't want to, for some reason. Again, she’s been single for over a year. That's probably why.  
  
He answers her question with a question of his own, and looks impressed with himself. “Do you expect me to pretend like the cougars at this dinner party are the better choice?”  
  
She kind of wants to kiss the infuriating little grin off his face. But she’s still in tune enough with past!Carla, the girl who understands the rules of the social circles they move in, to refrain from doing something this reckless in public, when their parents and most of their friends are right inside. The gossip would be ridiculous, and she’s not in the mood for dealing with it.  
  
She may have told her father to fuck off and started living her life on her terms, but that doesn’t mean she’s intent on being the talk of the town, just to piss him off. Her brief phase of teenage rebellion, of kissing not one but two boys at festive wine cellar parties, are long behind her.  
  
“Your place?”  
  
He must know what she’s really asking, because his grin turns into a little bit of a smirk. His nod is slow and deliberate, and she wordlessly motions for him to go back inside.  
  
They say their separate goodbyes to everyone, though she briefly stops to speak to his mother, who of course wants to hear all about Carla’s fabulous new life in London. Carla smiles at her. She’s always had a little bit of a soft spot for Guzmán’s mom, because she seemed more caring than most of the mother figures Carla grew up around, her own included.  
  
“Have a good night,” Laura tells her, and Carla wonders if she imagines the hint of excitement in her voice. “Guzmán said you’re going for ice cream at that place we used to take you to,” she explains, and Carla smiles at the memory. Those were some of the best summer nights of her entire life.  
  
They hug goodbye, and then Guzmán is waiting for her outside, his car keys in hand.  
  
“What took you so long?” He asks, after they’ve gotten in the car and he’s drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.  
  
“I had to placate your mother,” she laughs, then turns to him and puts a hand on his arm. “Nice touch with the ice cream.”  
  
He grins. “I knew she’d make a scene if I didn’t reference the fact that we were childhood sweethearts somehow.”  
  
“You better be willing to pay for my ice cream, then,” she mutters as he pulls out onto the road.  
  
They do actually get ice cream, then go back to his house, and when he finally kisses her lips for the first time, it’s after he’s gotten her off twice and made her scream his name loud enough, she’s glad his parents aren’t home.  
  
He’s arrogant in bed. It’s not surprising in the least, and she kind of loves the cocky little grin on his face — it goes well with her smirk.  
  
He drives her home after, because neither of them wants to deal with the walk of shame at breakfast the next morning, and she just pecks his lips and tells him they should get ice cream more often.  
  
And yeah, summer in Madrid already seems a lot more fun than it did just five hours ago.  
  
**  
  
Lu is staying in New York for the summer, says there’s nothing for her to come home for, and Carla tries hard not to be upset about it. (Isn’t she worth coming home for?)  
  
That leaves her with very limited options of people to hang out with. It’s not that she doesn’t have friends, she does, but most of them are in London, and it’s a little depressing.  
  
Carla is pretty sure she wouldn’t have believed you if you’d told her a year ago that she’d be hanging out with Valerio by choice. He’s helping her put together an intricate shelf she ordered, which is to say she mostly stands around giving instructions while he does all the actual work.  
  
Her project for the summer is remodeling the apartment she owns downtown, to ensure she never has to spend another break staying with her parents. It’s a worthwhile project.  
  
It takes her less than a week to make it livable enough to grab an overnight bag and get away from the soulless mansion she’s grown to loathe. The flooring and the walls were already done, so it’s mostly a matter of picking out furniture. If she’s being honest, she’d probably sleep on the floor if it meant getting away from her parents.  
  
“No, I think that part goes,” she points to the other end of the wooden beam he’s holding. “There.”  
  
Valerio laughs. “Couldn’t you have paid someone to assemble this for you?”  
  
She probably could have, but she’s been feeling lonely. It was easier to ask him to come help her with this than to take the plunge and just ask him to hang out.  
  
But she can’t tell him that, so she rolls her eyes, says, “I figured you could use the exercise, what with all the meetings you have to sit through these days.”  
  
It’s a good opportunity to catch up on a few business matters anyway, so they talk about new distribution deals and marketing initiatives for the wineries, and by the time the shelf is assembled, it seems only right to invite him to have dinner with her.  
  
It isn’t weird, or awkward, which she supposes makes sense. They have a lot to talk about, and know enough of the same people to not run out of things to catch up on.  
  
“How’s Lu?” Carla asks, after her first glass of wine.  
  
Valerio chuckles. “I was gonna ask you the same thing.”  
  
It’s surprising, maybe, that Lu hasn’t been keeping in touch with him much either. Carla knows enough about what’s happening in Lu’s life to still call her a friend, but it’s been a struggle.  
  
“I’m trying to convince her to visit me in London at the end of the summer, but she’s been so busy with that internship.”  
  
“Yeah,” Valerio nods. “Our dad got her that job. I guess now that she’s at Columbia she’s worth bragging rights again, so he’s making amends.”  
  
He sounds bitter, which Carla supposes is fair enough. Neither of the siblings ever clued her in on what led to their little family dispute, and at this point she’s too afraid to ask.  
  
Carla takes a sip of her wine. “Would’ve been nice to see her.”  
  
“Guess you’re stuck with me for the rest of the summer,” he laughs, and she smiles at him.  
  
Reluctant friendship is enough for her. Even if she’s technically kind of his boss, and paying him. But she thinks she knows him a little bit at this point, and he doesn’t seem like the type to do anything he doesn’t want to be doing.  
  
**  
  
Guzmán texts her three days after their little ice cream encounter, and she’s honestly surprised it took him that long. The apartment is in decent enough condition for Carla to be okay with having guests over, so she figures she’ll get him to come see it.  
  
They could meet somewhere else, but she’s not actually interested in spending time with him when they’re in public and can’t just get naked. That seems risky. (That, and it’s 40 degrees outside; she’d rather stay in her air-conditioned apartment.)  
  
‘ _Come over_ ’ she texts, and instantly has to smile when she sees his reply.  
  
‘ _Your dad?’_ Guzmán has always, always been terrified of her father. There are childhood pictures of him looking at her dad with such a horrified expression on his face, the adults used to joke he was acting like a scared kid meeting his future father-in-law for the first time. 

Her reply is just her address, and to his credit, he doesn’t ask where she’s making him drive.  
  
It takes him 25 minutes to get there, and she pulls him inside by his shirt and grins at him when he tries to take in his surroundings.  
  
He whistles. “New place?”  
  
There’s no reason for her to elaborate and mention that she actually bought the place years ago, with Polo, so she doesn’t. “Kind of.”  
  
That seems like enough talking for now, so she reaches for the bottom of his shirt and pulls it over his head, then unbuttons his pants. He chuckles a little, then steps out of his shoes and pants and looks at her expectantly. They’re in the living room, so she walks away from him, towards the bedroom and hopes he’ll get the hint and follow her.  
  
He groans when she reaches for the hem of her dress and pulls it over her head. She’s not wearing anything underneath, and he’s right in front of her in seconds, reaching for her hips and pulling her up for a kiss.  
  
She pushes him back onto her bed, then climbs on top of him and just gives him a look, not moving.  
  
Thankfully he gets the hint, grabs her and turns them around. The freckles on his face are distracting, and she finds herself following them with her eyes, trailing down the slope of his nose, then past his lips and finally trickling past his chin, towards his neck.  
  
Guzmán’s laugh snaps her out of her little freckle counting exercise.  
  
“Are you gonna make me do all the work?”  
  
She draws one of her legs up to her chest, then wraps it around his back and nods.  
  
"You better do at least some work."  
  
**  
  
Unsurprisingly, the rest of the people she knows in the city are similarly frustrated with the Madrid heat. Guzmán invites her along on a day trip to Valencia, says ‘everyone’ is going, and she fights the urge to ask him who exactly that entails.  
  
Turns out everyone really does mean everyone. She meets them all at the train station, and it’s slightly awkward for a minute because she hasn’t seen half of them since graduation last year.  
  
Samuel is with Omar and Ander, and Carla thinks it’s sort of amusing to see him third-wheeling this hard. Then there’s Rebeka, who is chatting animatedly with Valerio, looking less than happy to be awake at eight in the morning. Carla can relate.  
  
It takes them just under two hours on the air-conditioned train, which seems worth it in exchange for time at the beach. She gets stuck sitting in a booth with a little table, Guzmán next to her while Ander and Omar are across from them.  
  
It’s sort of uncomfortable, if only because she’s barely kept up with what any of them have been doing for the past year while they were back at Las Encinas, and she got to move on to the next chapter of her life.  
  
“Where are you going to university?” She asks Ander, because she knows his mother well enough to know that not going is not an option.  
  
“Staying in Madrid with this one,” Ander points to Omar, then gives Guzmán a look. “Not all of us want to get as far away from here as possible.”  
  
Carla looks over at Guzmán, then. Good point; she probably should’ve asked him what his plans for next year are. They haven’t exactly been spending a lot of time talking, though.  
  
He seems to understand the silent question in her eyes.  
  
“Universitat Politécnica in Barcelona,” he says, shrugging. “Engineering.”  
  
She raises a brow at that, impressed. “Really?”  
  
“What, did you expect something else?”  
  
She can tell Ander is watching their little exchange closely, like he’s not used to seeing them interact in a meaningful way. Not anymore, anyway, since Ander knows as well as they do that Carla and Guzmán were actually close friends until age 12 or 13, when they sort of mutually decided having friends of the opposite sex was weird.  
  
Anyway. She can feel Ander’s eyes on them, so she tries to push Guzmán’s hand away as subtly as possible when he shifts it just slightly and starts playing with the frayed ends of her jean shorts under the table. She really doesn’t need anyone to know they’re hooking up.  
  
Not that she’s embarrassed of him, or ashamed to be seen with him. It’s just a lot of drama that she’d rather not bother with. She briefly wonders what he’s told Ander about them, since the two of them are still friends. Probably enough for her to not have to be worried about these casual touches; there’s no way Ander is completely oblivious to what’s been going on.  
  
At the beach, Guzmán eagerly volunteers to put sunscreen on her back, his hands brushing the top of her tiny green bikini bottoms. She bites her lip and sincerely hopes nobody else saw the way he briefly squeezed her ass and then lightly slapped it.  
  
Ander catches up with her in the water at some point, when everyone else is busy drinking sangria from a huge bucket — Carla had tried to protest that, but Valerio insisted it was a vital part of a day out at the beach.  
  
He swims over to her and she smiles, mainly because she can’t remember the last time she had a one on one conversation with Ander. Maybe when she found out about his cancer.  
  
“Keep an eye on him, okay?”  
  
She laughs. “Is this the ‘ _if you hurt him, I’m gonna make your life miserable_ ’ talk?”  
  
Ander looks unfazed. “You know how he gets in July,” he says. “He’s gonna need the distraction.”  
  
It doesn’t bother her to hear him label her as that — as a distraction — because it’s probably true. It’s not like this is anything more serious than that.  
  
And no, she doesn’t know what Guzmán is like in July, because she hasn’t been friends with him in years; but knowing that Marina’s birthday is coming up means she can imagine, so she just nods and splashes Ander, then puts her head underwater.  
  
She may as well be a good friend to him while they mutually use each other for sex.  
  
Guzmán has a little too much of the sangria, pulls her into his lap when she gets out of the water, and she just smiles and lets him.  
  
Carla doesn’t have the energy to worry about what people she sees once a year might think of her anymore.  
  
**  
  
Marina’s birthday falls on a rare overcast day, and Carla tries to busy herself by figuring out some of the winery business she’s involved with during the day. She doesn’t make any plans, because she wants to make sure she’s available if Guzmán needs anything.  
  
When he still hasn’t even texted her by 7 pm, she figures it’s time for her to reach out.  
  
He picks her up twenty minutes after she calls him, and they get enormous ice cream sundaes at the same place his parents used to take them (and Marina) to when they were kids.  
  
She can tell he’s thinking about that, too, about how this place still looks exactly the same way it did fifteen years ago, the worn leather chairs still standing in the exact same spots. If she squints hard enough, she can almost see younger versions of Guzmán and Marina sitting across from her, talking animatedly, vying for her attention.  
  
But he doesn’t bring it up, so she steals a spoonful of his chocolate sundae and feigns offense when he pokes his spoon into her own strawberry ice cream.  
  
He spends the night at her place, almost falls asleep on her as they watch a random action movie he chose, and just sort of smiles at her lazily when she nudges him, asking whether he wants to go to bed.  
  
The kiss she presses to his lips as they lie next to each other is soft and light and she doesn't try to turn it into anything else. He doesn't need that right now, and she's not a total selfish bitch anymore.  
  
“Carla,” he whispers against her neck, wraps his arms around her, and hugs her close.  
  
She hugs him back just as tight, runs a hand through the hair at the nape of his neck slowly. “I know.”  
  
They don’t normally do much of this; cuddling and sleeping all wrapped around each other, but when she wakes up to him spooning her, she thinks they probably should.  
  
It’s pretty nice.  
  
**  
  
Lu calls her out of the blue in the middle of August and sounds so annoyed and angry about some guy who stole her cab, Carla instantly knows she’s stressed and projecting.  
  
“Come visit me,” she says, probably for the 50th time. Maybe she’ll agree this time. “I can go back to London anytime, you won’t even have to come back to Madrid, okay?”  
  
That must be a pretty good selling point, because Lu sighs, long and dramatic, and then just utters, “Fine, if you insist.” Carla tries hard not to crack up; only Lu would manage to make that sound like such a burden.  
  
“You sound very excited,” she laughs, but Lu cheers up and immediately starts talking about potential dates, and flights, and things they can do, so Carla decides she probably _is_ excited and lets it go.  
  
She has five days left to wrap things up in Madrid and go back to London before Lu gets there. Most of her time is spent with Guzmán, who she thinks might be a little bummed she’s leaving. She might be, too.  
  
He drives her to the airport, lifts her bag out of the trunk for her, and hugs her goodbye the way he would hug any friend, she thinks. It’s probably the most sensible thing to do, seeing as they live in different countries and would both be severely inconvenienced by trying to turn this into something it’s not.  
  
That doesn’t stop her from being annoyed by it.  
  
**  
  
"You should come see me," Carla says one night when they're talking. She mostly says it just to see what his reaction will be, not because she thinks he'll actually buy a ticket and travel to London. Guzmán doesn’t seem like the type for spontaneous international travel.  
  
They are reluctant, new friends at best. At worst, they are childhood friends who stopped really talking to each other around the time hormones kicked in, then completely lost track of one another when his sister — one of the key things they used to have in common — died and recently reconnected over their mutual physical attraction to one other. Their dinner party hookup last summer sort of gave way to a few weeks of casually seeing each other, because the sex was really good and it’s not like he’s the worst company to keep these days.  
  
It doesn’t mean anything, not that they ever had a conversation about that, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t enjoy his company now. He’s older, more mellow, and she’s loosened up a little too. Sometimes she wonders what would happen if they were ever actually in the same city for longer than a few weeks at a time.  
  
Now it’s November, and she hasn’t seen him since late August, when she left for London and he jokingly told her to text him if she’s bored.  
  
Carla doesn’t get bored, likes to keep busy, but she made time to text him anyway.  
  
What she doesn’t expect is for him to agree. “How’s next weekend?”  
  
It startles her so much, she has to actively force herself not to pause for too long. “Should be fine,” she says instead, and is pleased when her voice comes out sounding steady and… normal.  
  
They hang up a little while later, and she sort of freaks out a little. For the past two months they’ve both been making an effort to turn this into an actual friendship — regular phone calls, trying to keep up with what is going on in the other’s life, all that good stuff.  
  
She doesn’t know what seeing him again is gonna feel like. It’s not that she doesn’t _want_ to see him — it’s just that when they're together, they can't seem to keep their clothes on. Over the phone, that hasn’t been a problem, and she hasn’t even given into the temptation of drunkenly sexting him. Their friendship works well long distance. Put them in front of one another and she can't promise the whole thing won't just evaporate.  
  
If she spends the next week sort of anxiously shopping in an attempt to distract herself from his imminent arrival, that doesn’t mean she’s actually into him. She’s just a little worried about having him here, where she’s made a whole new life for herself, with new friends, new interests, a different taste in clothes. He’s an intruder from her previous life, and she’s a little nervous about whether or not he might judge this London version of her.  
  
Her cute one-bedroom apartment doesn’t have a guest room, and she doesn’t own a spare duvet because anyone she likes enough to have over can sleep in her bed. If it’s good enough for Lu, it’ll have to be good enough for Guzmán.  


When he walks through the doors of arrivals at Heathrow, Carla briefly panics about whether it would be weird to hug him, but then he’s walking over to her, grinning from ear to ear, and she throws her arms around him before he’s even set his bag down. 

They take the train from Heathrow, mainly because it’s ten times faster than a cab, and she finds Guzmán just sort of watching her from where he’s sitting across from her, like he’s trying to figure her out. 

She nudges his foot with hers under the table. “Why are you staring at me?” 

“You look kind of different.” 

And yeah — she does. It was sort of a deliberate, intentional shift for her when she first moved here. After years of wearing perfectly girly, pressed school uniforms, she needed a little bit of a break from that. These days she rarely wears dresses, having added a great selection of couture jeans to her closet instead, and she’s generally found a way to dress down without looking too average. The simple Ralph Lauren hoodie she’s wearing, paired with blue Levi’s is proof of that. 

“In a good way? 

“In a different way,” he smiles, and she’s worried this will finally be it, that this will make things awkward, but that doesn’t happen. Instead, they just animatedly talk about all the little anecdotes they didn’t bother mentioning on the phone over the past few weeks, catch up on gossip they may have heard about their former classmates, and time flies. 

By the time they have to get off the Heathrow Express and change onto the tube for the quick ten-minute ride to Islington, Carla feels comfortable enough having him around to turn off the constant stream of overthinking she’s been busy with.  
  
She doesn’t sleep with him that first night, and she can’t tell if that’s a good or a bad thing — it would be a lot easier to ignore the fact that she might have reluctantly developed some amount of feelings for him if they just got naked the second they got to her place.  
  
Instead, she takes him out for dinner and drinks at her favorite Vietnamese place, then grabs his hand and shows him around her cute little neighborhood. She absolutely loves Islington, because it feels like the kind of place that lets her combine her born and bred uppity nature and the more edgy, comfortable lifestyle she chose for herself when she moved to London. People here care about recycling while they wear Prada head to toe.  
  
As they walk along the canals and peek into houseboats, they reminisce about their joint family vacations when they were younger, sailing around the Mediterranean on yachts, and chuckle at the idea of permanently moving to a boat.  
  
Carla feels nostalgic in the best possible way, nostalgic enough to drop any pretense of not wanting to acknowledge all the history they share. “You know who would’ve loved a houseboat?” They’re standing on a bridge, looking down at a rather large boat that’s fully decked out in fancy polished wood. “Marina.”  
  
She doesn’t say it to be rude, she says it because it’s true. Marina had always loved their summer trips at sea the most.  
  
Guzmán takes her hand in his, squeezes, and sighs.  
  
**  
  
Thankfully (or not?) he wakes her up by trailing a hand over her stomach the next morning, immediately moves it lower when he realizes she’s awake and a willing participant in all of this, and that’s kind of the end of any doubt about where and how they’ll spend the next three days.  
  
They do still leave the apartment a few times, go see a play one of her friends recommended to her, and he even joins her for one of her bigger lectures where they can just sit in the back and not draw attention to the random non-student she dragged along.  
  
For some reason, it’s important to her that he gets to see these mundane parts of her life here. She shows him some of her favorite coffee shops to sit at and study, then takes him along to a pub quiz she and her friends usually go to, and her friends all seem to love him. None of them know what he is to her, because Carla herself barely knows the answer to that question, but it’s still nice to see him fit in so well with her new group of friends.  
  
It’s probably the nicest weekend she’s had since the summer, which is why it sucks so much when she takes him to the airport Sunday night.  
  
He actually kisses her before getting in line for security, and smiles at her. “See you at Christmas, right?”  
  
Carla hasn’t really thought that far ahead, but she nods anyway. She supposes she _could_ go home for Christmas.  
  
When he waves at her as he takes out his bag of liquids and puts them in one of those plastic boxes, it feels like the beginning of something, not the end.  
  
It’s kind of startling.  
  
**  
  
She’s on the phone with Lu a few days later.  
  
“How’s Guzmán doing anyway?”  
  
That’s where Carla fucks up, because she forgets this is just a routine question about him coming for a visit, which has been well documented on both of their social media feeds. Lu obviously doesn’t know they… Sleep in the same bed sometimes. “He’s fine,” she says, and wishes she could take back the words that follow. “Wait, did he say anything about us?”  
  
“What about you?” Fuck.  
  
Carla tries hard not to pick up on the duality of that question. “I’m good too, thanks.”  
  
“No, but are you two like… _good_ _together_?”  
  
Carla rolls her eyes and avoids the question, instead tells her about the play they went to see.  
  
“Carla, do you really think I care about some modern neoliberal play when you just accidentally admitted you’re sleeping with Guzmán?”  
  
She knows the answer to that, but she isn’t in the mood for Lu’s teasing and nosy questions.  
  
“We’re friends,” she sighs.  
  
Lu starts laughing. Ugh. Carla figures she’s allowed to get a little bitchy.  
  
“What’s so fucking funny?”  
  
And really, maybe she set herself up for this as well, because in hindsight, the answer is obvious.  
  
“I was ‘friends’ with Guzmán once, too.”  
  
The way in which she instantly wants to argue that this isn’t like that, because it’s more layered and profound makes her seriously doubt the label of ‘friends’ applies to them at all.  
  
**  
  
The only reason she goes home for Christmas at all is to appease her mother, who is seemingly struggling to come to terms with the fact that her only daughter is barely speaking to her, and her husband is a vindictive egomaniac who will stop at nothing. Carla isn’t sure how that last one took her twenty years to figure out, but better late than never.  
  
Another reason she gets on a plane to Madrid is the prospect of spending the holidays with Guzmán. In a platonic way. Their parents are friends, so they usually have dinner together on Christmas Eve. And well, it is Christmas after all, so if they spend some time together in the biblical sense, too, that would only be right.

She’s only home for four days, while he’s staying for a full two weeks. That kind of sucks, but Carla made plans for New Year’s with people back in London that she doesn’t want to cancel. It’s fine, though. She knows he’s only in Barcelona for school because it’s far enough away from his parents, but close enough to keep tabs on his mother, so she’s sure he’ll find a way to stay busy when she’s gone. 

The second she’s in an Uber on her way home from the airport, she texts him, asks him if he’s still got the key to the apartment that she gave him last summer. No, she’s not gonna waste any of her limited time in this city pretending she doesn’t want him. Out of sheer courtesy, she waits for him to confirm he does, before she tells him she’s almost home and will go ahead and take a shower and for him to be waiting for her in bed, naked, in thirty minutes. 

The sight of him spread out against her creamy white sheets is enough to make her grin with anticipation. She drops her towel and saunters over to him. 

“Hi,” he says, after he’s pulled her into his lap and kissed her. 

It feels too intimate, so she puts a hand over his mouth and grins. “Shut up."

Once again, she’s reminded of how nice it is to be doing this with someone she’s known since the day she was born, because he laughs at her rather than getting pissed off. He gets her. 

The four days pass too quickly, and she doesn’t really have the heart to tell him she won’t be home again until the summer. 

Maybe she should consider a weekend getaway to Barcelona.  
  
**  
  
Carla doesn’t get sick. She just doesn’t. Her immune system has never once failed her, and she’s lived through swine flu AND bird flu outbreaks. She never had either, obviously, but that’s because her immune system is infallible.  
  
Except then it’s February, and classes are really picking up again, and London is miserable and gray and cold, and… she gets sick.  
  
It feels so odd, she doesn’t even know what to do. What do people do when they get sick? Okay, no, let her rephrase that: What do adults who don’t live with their parents or a live-in maid do when they get sick? Who cooks them soup? Who brings them ice cream to soothe a sore throat and gently nods when the sick person feels like wallowing in self-pity?  
  
She doesn’t tell any of her friends in town, because it feels sort of counter-intuitive to be a nineteen-year-old independent woman living on her own in her second year of university and also be unable to take care of herself when she gets a basic cold.  
  
She thinks she has a mild fever, though she’s guesstimating that one because what sort of adult owns a thermometer unless they have children? No sane adult, that’s for sure. Anyway, she’s hot, she’s got a headache and feels congested and her throat kind of feels like it’s on fire. It doesn’t seem that serious, but a quick google search tells her it could be anything from a mild cold, to pneumonia to late-stage HIV where all of your organs fail, so. Hmm.  
  
The only person she can think to call is Guzmán. Lu would probably just tell her to go see a doctor, which seems pointless for a cold, and she can’t think of anyone else in her circle of friends who wouldn’t laugh at her for not knowing how to deal with a cold.  
  
“Whoa, you sound like shit,” is the first thing he says when he picks up and she says hi. She’s glad he never bothers to filter his thoughts; girls must love hearing that kind of blatant honesty at all times. But she knows she sounds terrible, and she definitely _feels_ like shit, so she doesn’t have the energy to joke about it.  
  
“I’m sick,” she tells him, tries to properly enunciate because her voice sounds so croaky to herself. “I feel awful.”  
  
To his credit, he doesn’t immediately tell her she’s being dramatic.  
  
“Just sleep it off,” he says, and she’s glad they’re not on FaceTime because she must look awful and she’s definitely pouting a little. “How sick are you?”  
  
The way he actually sounds concerned is kind of adorable. “How would I know? Is there a way to test that?”  
  
He laughs and she pouts some more. “I forgot that you never get sick. Didn’t you win that stupid perfect attendance award five years in a row back in school?”  
  
This is why she likes being friends with him. He knows all these random things about her — like that she prides herself on her impeccable ability to survive flu season without ever missing a single class. It’s easy to speak to him about this because he gets her.  
  
“I think I had stomach flu once, in third grade, but that’s it. What the hell do I do?”  
  
And of course, caring Guzmán takes over and walks her through it, asks her to explain all of her symptoms and tells her exactly what to do. “Go to the nearest drug store, grab some Theraflu and try to just sleep for as long as you can. But drink water, ‘cause if you have a fever, you’re gonna need the fluids.”  
  
She’s too weak to argue with him so she nods resolutely, then realizes she’s already forgotten half of the things he just said to her. “Can you text me a list?”  
  
“You’re lucky you’re cute,” he says, and she’d normally definitely make fun of him for it, but right now she’s kind of dying to just sleep and not feel this utterly miserable so she thanks him and hangs up.  
  
He does text her a list of what to get, then tells her she should definitely watch The Big Short and this weird documentary on the Russian Anti Doping Agency when she feels well enough to require entertainment.  
  
She wouldn't bother watching either, but she knows he'll ask her what she thought and might judge her if she doesn't have an opinion. She falls asleep halfway through The Big Short, and when she tells him over the phone the next day, he very seriously tells her to try again.  
  
**  
  
Her birthday is in June, and in response to his elaborate birthday text, she sends him a screenshot of the flight to Madrid that she just booked for the following week.  
  
She doesn’t appreciate his lack of reply, so she calls him. Thankfully, he picks up on the first ring, so she’s already feeling a little less worried that he might not want to see her. (When did she start to stress about these things? God, exams make her go a little loopy sometimes.)  
  
“So Friday, June 14th,” he says, and she may or may not know him a little too well at this point because she can hear the grin in his voice.  
  
“June 14th.”  
  
“You know, Rebeka is having a party that night.”  
  
That sounds interesting. “Is she now?”  
  
“Something about Bastille day and mocking French traditions,” Guzmán laughs. “I think it was Valerio’s idea.”  
  
Carla hums in agreement. That does sound like something Valerio would think of. “We could always sneak off and find your childhood bedroom…”  
  
His ringing laughter is probably the best thing she’s heard in days. “Sounds like a plan.”  
  
He’s quiet for a moment before he speaks again.  
  
“Hey, happy birthday,” he says. “Any plans?”  
  
It’s ten in the morning and she’s still in bed. She has lunch plans with friends later, but that isn’t for a few hours, so she figures she can keep Guzmán on the phone a little while longer.  
  
“Depends,” she says, and kind of bites her lip even though he obviously can’t see. “What are you wearing?”  
  
She thinks she hears him chuckle, then let out a curse, and before she knows it he’s hung up the phone and called her back on FaceTime.  
  
It’s her birthday; she deserves a little treat.  
  
The look of wonder in his eyes when she takes her shirt off on camera is the best present she could’ve asked for.  
  
It makes spending her birthday away from him a little less frustrating.  
  
//   
  
tbc


	2. Chapter 2

“Stop fucking laughing.”  
  
She's running up the stairs in front of him, wearing absolutely nothing and trying not to giggle into the hand that's covering her mouth. They’re at his house, and were… enjoying each others’ company downstairs until they heard the front door open. He’d insisted his mother was out for the day, but apparently there’d been a change in plans.  
  
And really, this is why Carla always tells him to come to her place — though she will admit, she’s enjoying the comedic aspects of this ordeal.  
  
When they finally get to his room, he locks the door behind him and grins at her.  
  
"Not funny," Guzmán tells her, dropping their clothes in a heap on the floor. He's still wearing boxers. She’s literally wiping away tears because she’s laughing that hard. It is pretty funny, if you think about it.  
  
“Your mom loves me, she totally wouldn’t have minded seeing me naked and on top of you on her beautiful new couch,” she says, sitting back against the pillows.  
  
Guzmán laughs and sits down at the end of the bed. “Sure, having my mom walk in on me having sex is definitely on my bucket list for the summer.”  
  
Carla bites her lip and he ends up scooting closer to her. "Technically we weren't having sex," she tells him.  


And just like that, nothing's funny anymore.  
  
They’ve both been back in Madrid for a few days and had run into each other at the first real party of the summer at Rebeka’s house, as planned. The concept of hooking up in his old bedroom ended up being a little too weird for him, but it still took very little convincing for him to agree to go home with her at the end of the night.  
  
It's summer and they're young, and it's not like it's unhealthy to have a regular sexual partner.  
  
They haven’t talked about it, but she’s pretty sure he’s game for a summer filled with hookups and easy to keep company as well.  
  
**

He takes her out for dinner on a Wednesday, because he claims he’s going to go insane if he has to eat his mother’s cooking again anytime soon. Apparently Laura has recently taken a cooking class and is now convinced that, after years of having a maid do the cooking for them, she’s qualified to take over.  
  
Between sushi and sake and one or two pints of Asahi, she finds herself laughing at his over the top cheesy retelling of their entire childhood romance and breakup — which was really just that one week of spring break when they were 8 and she joined him and Marina on a trip to their grandparent’s place in Asturias where she concluded that she liked Marina more than him and proceeded to ‘leave’ him for his sister. He’d spent the entire rest of the week coming up with increasingly more ridiculous ways to try and win her back, finally got his grandmother to help him bake her a heart-shaped cake and Carla had diplomatically discovered the novel concept of polyamory then, because she declared she couldn’t possible be made to choose between Guzmán and Marina.  
  
So… Yeah. They were cute. He definitely still is.  
  
“Kind of weird how I ended up with Polo, and you had Lu,” she says, a spoonful of cheesecake in her mouth. She’s totally just teasing him. “When we were clearly such a good match.”  
  
Guzmán laughs a little, but she can tell he’s holding back.  
  
“Except your dad never would’ve let me date you,” which — well, if he’s looking for an excuse, that’s a pretty bad one.  
  
Carla’s dad probably would have preferred literally any other rich boy over Polo; robbing him of an opportunity to bond with a potential father-in-law was kind of the ultimate unintentional fuck you of Carla’s brief moment of autonomy at age 12.  
  
She takes another bite of her cheesecake and grins at him slyly. “Well, it’s not like you ever asked…”  
  
Guzmán scoffs, then tries to play it off. ”You never would have picked me," he says easily, like he's resigned to it, like it's just a fact.  


Truthfully, no, she probably wouldn't have. Not that he ever tried to date her. And sure, hindsight is 20/20, but she’s not sure she’d go back and change anything about her teenage choice of boyfriend. Polo was perfect.

All of this is bordering on a serious conversation she’s not even remotely interested in having, so she steals a bite of his dessert (hot fudge brownies have no right to be _this_ delicious), then gives him an apologetic smile. 

When she’s drifting off to sleep in his arms later that night, she finds herself thinking that she’d probably pick him now.  


**  
  
Lu is actually home for a few weeks this summer, and somehow on good enough terms with her dad again to stay with him. Carla hasn’t asked about that, but she kind of wants to.  
  
She hasn’t seen her since last August, when Lu spent a week in London with her, and the hug she engulfs her in when she sees her walking up to the restaurant they’re meeting at is probably painful for both of them, but Carla doesn’t care.  
  
Carla’s got her hair up in a messy bun and is wearing loose jeans and a t-shirt that’s falling off of her shoulder, and when Lu notices, she sort of holds her at arms length, then pokes her shoulder.  
  
“Someone’s ready to have a relaxed summer,” she says, then shoos Carla inside so they can order food. It’s not a fancy restaurant, and Carla didn’t feel like dressing up. Thankfully she’s no longer bothered by Lu’s well-meaning, judgmental antics. 

After they’ve ordered, Lu gives her a careful once over and when her eyes linger on her collarbone, Carla rolls her eyes. Yes, she knows she’s got a little bit of a bruise there; Guzmán got a little too aggressive with the biting. It’s not dark enough to warrant covering it up with makeup but of course Carla should’ve known Lu would notice immediately. 

“Stop staring,” she says. “It’s impolite to stare.”  
  
The waiter sets a martini down in front of Lu right in time for her to take it, stir it using the skewered olives, and take a dramatic sip. She literally looks like a Bond girl.

“When have I ever been polite?”  
  
Which is fair enough, really. Lu tells her all of the latest gossip, which she’s somehow kept up with more than Carla, even though Carla has been back in Spain for nearly a month while Lu just arrived. Apparently Nadia is a great source for that since she gets her news directly from Omar.  
  
As it turns out, Rebeka has been dating Valerio for a while, which Lu rolls her eyes at even though Carla thinks that actually makes a lot of sense. She isn’t really friends with the girl, but knows both of them well enough to know that’s kind of a bizarrely good match. Nadia is dating the (Muslim) (Australian) (Perfect) (Lu’s words, not hers) president of the model UN chapter at NYU, Ander is still with Omar, and Samuel is seemingly still incapable of keeping a girl for longer than a few weeks, not that Carla cares about him enough to take note of that.

When the brunette is done rehashing all of the latest relationship drama within their circle of friends, she fixes Carla with a look and grins slyly.  
  
“And I take it you’re still pretending you’re not totally in love with Guzmán?”  
  
Carla rolls her eyes at her, then kicks her shin under the table, but Lu’s knowing smile probably means there’s no point in denying it.  
  
Later that week, Lu comes over for a sleepover, which Carla forgets to mention to Guzmán. They’re not attached at the hip; she doesn’t tell him about _everything_ she’s doing _all_ the time. (Okay, so maybe she does, but it’s really only because it makes meeting up with him more convenient.) 

He lets himself in when they’re halfway through their rewatch of Mean Girls, and 2/3 done with their first bottle of wine.  
  
Carla is so into the movie that she doesn’t hear the door open.  
  
“Hey ba—“ Guzmán stops in his tracks when he sees the two of them sitting on the couch. Carla tries hard not to laugh because did he just almost call her babe? Baby? Both options are horrible, and she hates pet names, but that’s... new. “Hi Lu, I didn’t know you were around.”  
  
Lu rolls her eyes, but Carla can tell she’s loving this from the way her eyes sparkle mischievously. “What, your girlfriend didn’t tell you we’re having a sleepover?”  
  
It seems only right for Carla to roll her eyes right back at Lu and gently elbow her side for that comment. Guzmán just grins a little and shakes his head, and Carla would be lying if she didn’t feel a little good about him being okay with having someone assume she’s his girlfriend.  
  
He goes to the kitchen to grab a beer, and Lu kind of gives her a pointed look.  
  
She leans over and whispers, “You’re seriously still not dating?”  
  
Carla shakes her head.  
  
Lu seems like she’s trying to be delicate when she says, “Maybe you should.”  
  
Then Guzmán walks back into the room, sits down next to Carla, and she sort of zones out as she listens to Lu and Guzmán catch up.  
  
It’s nice to know that she’s got Lu’s blessing, just in case they ever actually decide to go for it.  
  
He pecks her lips when he leaves an hour later, says he’ll see her tomorrow, and the look on Lu’s face is enough to make her blush.  
  
**  
  
“I told my mom about us,” he says one night, when they’re out for a drink at the small wine bar Carla recently discovered five minutes from her apartment. The casual way he says it kind of makes her smile.  
  
They’re in a secluded booth, sitting by the open window, and he’s toying with the rings on her fingers. “Why would you do that?”  
  
“I got tired of making up excuses for why I was never home,” he laughs, and she thinks that makes a lot of sense, actually. He’s spending most of his nights with her; of course his mom would be curious about that. “She definitely stopped believing my lies about sleepovers at Ander’s weeks ago.”  
  
Carla honestly doesn’t really care if his mother knows about them. What she does care about, however, is what exactly he told her about them. She highly doubts he told his mother the truth; they’re not close enough for that.  
  
But she can’t ask him about that without sounding like she’s begging him to admit this is more than just really, really good sex, so she doesn’t ask about it at all.  
  
“Did she squeal and instantly call up the wedding planner she has on speed dial?”  
  
Guzmán grins at her, then leans over and kisses her hair.  
  
“Basically,” he murmurs, and there’s something in his voice that she doesn’t quite recognize.  
  
**  
  
“Stop it,” Carla scolds, pushing Guzmán’s hand off her thigh. “It’s too hot for you to be touching me in any capacity.”  
  
They’re having drinks with Ander and Omar at a nice outdoor venue, which absolutely feels like a double date.  
  
Ander and Guzmán go up to the bar to get the next round of drinks, and Omar just smiles at her like he can tell what she’s thinking.  
  
“Fucked up double date, huh?”  
  
Carla laughs and nods. She doesn’t know Omar too well, but he seems nice enough. They both turn to watch the boys at the bar, chatting as they wait for their drinks, and Carla swears she swoons a little when Guzmán gives Ander a little clap on the back and grins at him. It’s so cute to see them settling into their adult friendship.  
  
When they get back to the table, Guzmán is grinning when he asks, “Were you talking about us?”  


Carla laughs, smiles at him sweetly. “You wish.”  
  
He takes her hand in his, then leans over to kiss her cheek and whispers, “I do.”  
  
So really, if she spends the rest of the night swooning some more, that’s all his doing.  
  
**  
  
“Hey,” Guzmán says when they’re eating dinner on her couch a few days later. There’s a piece of lettuce stuck in his teeth, and he’s sort of speaking with his mouth full. For some reason she thinks that’s funny, not gross. His voice is casual to a fault. “My mom asked if you want to come over for dinner on Sunday.”  
  
Carla smiles at him, raises an eyebrow in question. “Is she cooking again? From your animated retelling of the spinach quiche she made last week, I’m not sure I want to go.”  
  
Maybe she’d be a little more worried about this development if she hadn’t spent half of her childhood at his house, if she hadn’t been privy to a million dinner conversations between him and his mom, and Marina, once upon a time.  
  
As things stand, she’s totally fine with coming over and catching up with Laura, and maybe even Ventura. She likes Guzmán’s mom. She’s partial to his dad. Most importantly, she knows they like her; this will be a piece of cake.  
  
Maybe she shouldn’t be thinking about how much she wants to impress them, make them see her as a worthy match for their son, but she is. Maybe she really wants him to see her as such, too.  
  
On Sunday, Carla pulls out all the stops. She wears a sundress with a conservative neckline, makes sure to curl her hair in soft, casual waves, goes for light makeup rather than aggressive eyeliner.  
  
Guzmán laughs when he comes out to greet her. “Dressed to impress, huh?”  
  
She smirks at him, then leans up to peck his lips in response. She’s at his house for dinner with his parents; she’s allowed to act like his girlfriend, even if she technically isn’t. It’s a technicality she doesn’t really care about. Labels were always more Lu’s thing than hers.  
  
She can tell Laura wants to ask about her parents, knows they’re still friends, and appreciates that she didn’t just go ahead and invite them over tonight. The small window of opportunity in which her mother could’ve divorced her narcissist of a father and somehow gotten back in touch has passed, so Carla has no interest in having them in her life.  
  
Dinner goes well. So well in fact, she finds herself out on the back deck with Laura afterward, having a glass of wine, while the men are smoking cigars on the lawn.  
  
Laura looks relaxed and tipsy and… content, maybe. Carla feels the same way, except she’s slightly on edge, because she’s not used to having to pretend this hard anymore; she didn’t miss the silly little formalities that used to inform her choices of dinner conversation. His parents are more genuine and down to earth than hers, but it’s still a lot.  
  
Guzmán’s mother is just watching him chat to Ventura a few steps away, a tiny smile on her face.  
  
“Thank you, Carla,” she says, putting a hand on her wrist. Carla smiles, even though she has no idea what she’s being thanked for. “Guzmán seems to be doing well — I assume I have you to thank for that.”  
  
It’s an unassuming comment — she’s sure Laura means well. But she can’t take credit for any of this, and she frankly doesn’t want to.  
  
“That’s all his doing,” she says, then takes a sip of her wine. “You should give him more credit. It’s been a lot of pressure on him, having all of the attention on him since…” She trails off. Bringing up Marina is probably not the best idea right now. “He’s really trying, Laura. You’re lucky to have him.”  
  
The older woman smiles, a full smile with teeth and everything; it’s so genuine, Carla can’t help but smile back at her. “He’s lucky to have _you_.”  
  
It takes a lot to make Carla blush. This, though? This just about does the trick.  
  
She looks down at her wine glass, tries and fails to come up with something to say in response. It’s a little overwhelming, because having dinner with his parents felt as natural and comfortable as everything else does with him these days.  
  
Thankfully Guzmán walks over then, sits down next to her and grabs her hand.  
  
“What did I miss? Did she scare you off with her opinions on names for her grandchildren yet?” He kisses her hair and she lets herself lean back against him. It’s easy to be this comfortable with him when his mother is just sort of smiling at them over the top of her wine glass, like she’s always known this would happen eventually, like her motherly instincts could’ve predicted this.  
  
“We’re just talking about girl stuff,” Laura says, then gives her a private smile and winks. It reminds her of the conversations they used to have when Marina and her were nine or ten, when Laura would take them out for lunch and pedicures on Saturdays.  
  
She stays the night, laughs when he begrudgingly lets her have his favorite pillow, and really, this isn’t so bad. 

She could get used to this.  
  
**  
  
The idea to go camping is Valerio’s, she’s pretty sure. He’s the only one insane enough to suggest that kind of thing, and more importantly, the only one enthusiastic enough about his own ideas to get everyone to go along with them. On top of Ander, Omar, Rebeka and Valerio, Lu, Guzmán and Nadia have also agreed to go.  
  
They take two separate cars to get everyone there, and she gets stuck riding in the back with Nadia while Guzmán drives and Lu sits in the passenger seat.  
  
Carla hasn’t actually seen Nadia in two years, now that she thinks about it. The fact that she’s currently sleeping with the guy Nadia was apparently in love with at one point should make things awkward, but neither Nadia nor Guzmán seem to care too much. They’re both friendly with each other and clearly over whatever happened between them.  
  
Nadia is nice and seemingly more relaxed than ever, just keeps up a steady flow of small talk on the short one hour drive to the lake.  
  
They pull off the highway, and can’t be further than ten minutes away from the campsite when Lu looks at Nadia in the rearview mirror and laughs.  
  
“Can you believe we’re the only ones without a significant other on this trip?”  
  
Nadia just chuckles and nods, says something about it being a shame that Sameer — who Carla assumes is Nadia’s boyfriend — had to stay in New York for the summer.  


Sometimes she forgets about that, about how Lu and Nadia are roommates and close friends now. She’s not jealous, it’s just still amusing to think about. 

When they finally get out of the car, Carla makes a point of glaring at Lu and elbowing her. The grin on Lu’s face tells her she knows exactly why she deserves the taunting.  
  
“Stop it,” Carla whispers, and Lu grins back at her smugly.  
  
She shakes her head. “I’m just speaking it into existence, darling.”  
  
Then again, they _are_ sharing a tent, so as far as being subtle goes, Carla is pretty sure that ship has sailed. Guzmán puts it up in record time, and when she unzips the front flap to check it out, he’s already sitting down on top of a sleeping bag and grinning at her like a kid on Christmas morning. She’s kind of impressed; she didn’t know he was the outdoorsy, crafty type. Maybe engineering is the right field for him to go into after all.  
  
“Look at you,” she giggles, moving towards him on her knees until she can sit down across his lap. “Did the Boy Scouts teach you that?”  
  
He nods, even though they both know he was never a scout. “It’s my raw, god-given ability as a man to provide you with food and shelter.”  
  
Carla rolls her eyes, then her hips, and he groans. “I don’t see any food — you better figure that out quick, you know what I’m like when I’m hungry.”  
  
And even though he laughs, she sees that he’s wary; Carla is kind of infamous for her inability to hold back when she takes too long to satisfy a food craving. He’s been on the receiving end of her empty threats and the silly fights she likes to pick one too many times over the past year. 

He kisses her quickly, then pulls away and reaches for his bag across the tent. She has no idea how, but he somehow manages to grab it, pulls it closer and grins triumphantly when he produces a peanut butter clif bar from it. She takes it from his hands, but isn’t convinced. 

“I was thinking real food — like maybe you can go shoot some rabbits for me and start a little fire to grill them over,” she muses, then tears open the packaging of the clif bar anyway. She takes a bite; it’s not too bad. 

“Modern problems require modern solutions,” he says, then leans forward and takes a bite of the energy bar she’s holding. She scoffs and puts her arm behind her back, hiding it from him. “Hey, I thought sharing is caring.” 

Carla shakes her head, laughing. “I said that when I tried to drunkenly convince you a threesome with Lu was a good idea, that _so_ doesn’t apply to food.”  


He grins, and she leans forward to kiss him, just because. “You still haven’t gotten back to me on that idea, by the way,” she says, smirking. 

In one fell swoop, he turns her around, pinning her arms above her head. He takes the clif bar from her triumphantly and takes a bite before he shakes his head at her. 

“I didn’t think you actually expected me to acknowledge that horrible idea,” he runs a hand through her hair, then feeds her the rest of the bar. 

Carla pouts. “You’re no fun.” 

“Maybe I’m just smarter than you give me credit for,” he says. “There’s no way that would end well. I know how competitive you two get.”

He may have a point there, but Carla still thinks it would be pretty hot. Ah well, she’ll have to stick to daydreaming about it. 

“Let’s find the others and grab some real food or I might just kill you and hide your body in the lake,” she says, and he nods and helps her get up. 

When they get out of the tent, everyone else is already sitting around the unlit fire pit waiting for them, and they all look over at the two of them, intrigued. Carla finds herself instinctively reaching for Guzmán’s hand, squeezing it tight. 

There’s a restaurant on the campgrounds, so thankfully no one has to eat anything cooked by them. After a quick lunch, they all go back to their tents to get ready for a swim in the lake, despite Lu’s protests that lakes creep her out. (Such a typical Lu thing to do — why did she agree to go on a camping trip to the Lake District then?)

When Guzmán pushes Carla off the boat dock she squeals, then tries to splash him the second she’s got her head above water again. He just grins, jumps in close enough to splash her and she pushes at his chest immediately when he resurfaces in front of her. 

“That’s another thing they taught me in Boy Scouts,” he says, grabbing onto her hips underwater. “Always be prepared for your enemies to attack.” 

Carla laughs, wraps her arms around his neck. “Your scout unit sounds a little aggressive. Are you sure it wasn’t just a thinly veiled excuse for military grooming?”  
  
She kind of really, really loves him for laughing at all of her stupid jokes.  
  
Somewhere behind them, she hears Lu groan. “Get a fucking room, guys,” the girl snickers, and they both turn around to flip her off.  
  
They’re sitting around the fire later that night, the flame almost out, and everyone’s sufficiently tipsy. She’s in jean shorts and Guzmán’s hoodie, because she hadn’t realized it would get this cold at night. Her knees are drawn up to her chest, and she knows he thinks it’s hot that it looks like she’s not wearing anything under the hoodie because he whispered it in her ear an hour ago when he made her sit down in his lap. She’s sipping beer from a bottle, mainly because it’s delicious, but probably also because she knows he gets a kick out of it.  
  
His hand is trailing from her knee up to the top of her thigh, slipping under his hoodie, and she’s fighting the urge to just turn around and kiss him.  
  
Everyone but Ander, Omar and Lu has already gone to bed, and it must be after midnight by now. 

Lu and Omar are making conversation, talking animatedly about something or another — Carla hasn’t been listening for the past hour or so — while Ander is sort of talking to Guzmán, though she can tell neither of them is very into it.  
  
The fact that he's being affectionate in front of all their friends might mean more than either of them wants to admit.  
  
Deciding it’s time to put an end to this, Carla stretches out her arms and yawns dramatically. He sort of nudges her, and she gives him a look to let him know she’s totally faking, then grabs his hand and mutters, “Goodnight,” as she takes off for their tent.  
  
It’s a little risky, maybe, to push him down against the sleeping bag and take off his hoodie and her bra at the same time, but it’s not like their friends don’t already know they’re hooking up — if they happen to hear anything, they’ll live.  
  
Their friends will definitely figure out what they're doing, but when he's whispering in her ear everything she makes him feel when he's inside her, she really can't find it in her to care. Neither of them is very quiet, though Guzmán does clamp a hand over her mouth the second time she forgets they’re trying not to keep everyone else awake.  


It’s the middle of the night, and she’s feeling all happy and blissed out and sated. They’re so good together, it’s not even funny — sometimes she can barely wrap her head around it. She has no idea how she’s gonna give this up when they go their separate ways again at the end of the summer.  
  
“You so care,” she breathes against the skin of his shoulder, when she's half asleep and curled against him and he's half asleep and letting her. He lets out this little humming sound in reply, and she doesn’t think it’s a no.  
  
Maybe they care about each other, just a little. Maybe they always have.  
  
**  
  
The next day is uneventful, spent lounging at the lake and taking turns taking breaks for drinks and food, no real communal activities. At least until Lu suggests they play a game of Never Have I Ever later that night, after they’ve all done a few tequila shots. Carla protests, saying they’re too old for this shit, and she’s kissed everyone sitting around the bonfire except for Omar and Nadia so it just seems stupid to pretend like any salacious information could be revealed by playing this silly game. She doesn’t point that out, though, because she’s not sure Rebeka or Valerio would appreciate if she disclosed the fact that they both kissed her at one point or another to the rest of their friends.

Everyone else is fairly drunk, so of course her protests fall on deaf ears. 

“Never have I ever been in love with anyone sitting in this circle,” Lu says, then takes a gulp of her drink. Everyone else drinks, too, so maybe this wasn’t the smartest thing to ask. They’re all way too intertwined. It’s an easy way to get everyone drunk, though.  
  
They’ve all somehow hooked up with one another, but Carla realizes she’s the only one who can’t hide behind the guise of a failed past relationship. The only one she could have possibly been in love with out of this group of people is Guzmán.

She drinks too, and Guzmán sort of looks at her like he wants to ask about that. Of course she could pretend she’s talking about platonic love and meant Lu, but that’s not really the point of the game; that’s just a lame cop-out. He doesn’t ask, and she doesn’t say anything, just leans towards him a little and lets him peck her lips.  
  
The smirk on Lu’s face tells her choosing that question was very much deliberate.  
  
The rest of the game leads to a lot more drinking and very few actual revelations; she doesn’t really care that Valerio kissed Nadia a few years ago. They’re fucking adults; kisses don’t mean shit.  
  
Back in their tent, Guzmán grins at her before he pulls her closer, kisses her slow and sweet.  
  
Neither of them mentions her accidental, indirect love confession, but she can tell he feels the same with every single one of his touches, swears she hears him breathe the words against her neck when she’s distracted trying not to scream his name.  
  
Turns out going on this camping trip was a really, really good idea.  
  
She sits in the passenger seat next to him as he drives them home the next morning, Nadia and Lu passed out in the backseat, and when he reaches across the console and takes her hand in his, she finds herself grinning.  
  
**  
  
He’s on his side of her bed when she gets back from a lunch date with Lu, wearing boxers and nothing else. His back is to her, and he’s either asleep or just hasn’t bothered to acknowledge that he heard her come in yet. 

They didn’t have plans to hang out, but this happens more and more these days — he’s got his own set of keys, and she’s fine with him using them whenever he pleases. 

She pulls her dress over her head, leaving her in just a matching set of underwear. She sets her phone down on the bedside table before laying down and pressing her chest against his back, tries to wrap an arm around his chest.  
  
And you know what? It's nice to come home to him.  
  
He instantly grabs onto her hand, and she giggles a little. He’s way too broad for her to be the big spoon. But then he lets out this contented sigh, just kind of breathes in deep, and she feels the air in the room shift.  
  
“What’s wrong?”  
  
“I needed to get out of the house,” he says, and his voice comes out frustrated, with that angry edge she used to associate with him after Marina— oh. Carla feels realization dawn on her and suddenly feels like a really terrible friend.  
  
“It’s her birthday,” she observes, which is probably the wrong thing to say, but she does it anyway.  
  
They don’t make a habit of talking about Marina. It’s just too painful. Realizing she would’ve been 20 today is overwhelming for her, and she can’t even imagine how terrible Guzmán must be feeling.  
  
She doesn’t push him on it further, doesn’t force him to turn around. If he’s crying a little and he doesn’t want her to see, she’s fine with that. Instead, she turns, lets him wrap an arm around her from behind, and squeezes his hand tight when he buries his face against her neck and lets her feel the wet tears on his cheek.  
  
They both fall asleep at some point, and she wakes up with her head on his chest and her arm draped over his stomach. He’s slowly running a hand through her hair, so she knows he’s awake even before he speaks.  
  
“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he says quietly.  
  
She should probably be freaked out by that and tell him he’s crossing a line, that this is strictly physical, but it stopped being just that a while ago and she knows she’d be stupid to pretend she hasn’t noticed.  
  
“You’d just have to find another pretty blonde to spend your summers with,” she jokes, and when she hears his quiet laughter, she feels pretty great about being able to make him laugh even when he’s feeling like this.  
  
He toys with the lace of her bra, then slips his finger under it. “You’re the only blonde I’ve ever really liked,” he says, and she thinks he’s joking, but it’s also kind of true. She’s never seen him take notice of anyone that wasn’t a brunette before. A quiet voice in the back of her mind is sort of hoping that was deliberate, that no blonde could ever compare. That seems absurd, so she elects to ignore it.  
  
She grins slyly, then looks up at him from where her head is resting on his bare chest. He’s not as blond as he used to be as a kid, but she figures he’ll still get what she’s implying when she says, “You too.”  
  
It’s the closest they’ve ever come to talking about being exclusive.  


**  
  
The end of summer comes all too soon.  
  
They’re at her place, and her flight back to London is in 12 hours, but that doesn’t stop her from being awake at 3:00 in the morning, having a random, sleep-deprived conversation with him while he brushes a hand across her ribcage teasingly.  
  
Neither of them wants to be the first to fall asleep, because that just means it’ll be time to say goodbye sooner.  
  
“You better visit me every month,” she says, tries to sound threatening but it really just comes out sounding needy. She kind of really, really needs him to be around more.  
  
“You should visit me, too,” he retorts, teasing. “Why is it always me having to do the visiting?”  
  
She turns around in his arms, sort of drapes herself over his bare chest. “What, I can’t want my boyfriend to be a part of my life?”  
  
His hand is on her back, and she feels him pull her closer at that. They don’t need to talk about what this is; they both already know.  
  
"God forbid you don't get what you want."  


She giggles as she glances at him. "It would be a shame," she says jokingly. He laughs and drapes his arm around her shoulder.  
  
The next day, he takes her to the airport, and she thinks they're both on the verge of tears. They've made vague plans to visit each other over the next weeks, but nothing's confirmed yet, and the uncertainty of not knowing when she'll get to see him again is depressing.   
  
When he texts her after she’s gone through security and tells her to check her bag for a surprise, she ends up sitting at her gate for a solid five minutes grinning like a total lovestruck idiot because he packed her a little snack. She can't believe he remembered that she likes to chew away her anxiety before she gets on a plane.  
  
It’s almost enough to make her walk right back out of the airport and never leave his side again.

**Author's Note:**

> find me [on tumblr](http://cupcakeb.tumblr.com/)


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